12 comments:

i'm not the one to be categorized as rich. but i'm also not poor. i'm just somewhere in the middle for financial side. and i do pay taxes. i pay the taxes for my house building, my family's vehicles, and also salary.

but i'm afraid i must say that, indeed, yes, there are many people dont pay taxes here. including those riches people. and they are out of law for what the did that they didnt pay the taxes... ironic, yes.

John,Absolutely for middle people like Kana and me pay taxes, just like what she mentioned, house building, vehicles, and salary.Btw, just a week ago, I was stopped by a group of police (it was Sunday around 14.00). I don't have a driving license (it was stolen some years ago, and since I seldom rode a motorcycle at that time, I didn't try getting a new driving license. Stubborn of me. LOL.) And you can guess what I did when those police stopped me last Sunday? I bribed them.Oh well, I wrote it in my blog, John, but it is in Bahasa Indonesia and your Bahasa is ugly, I suppose? hahahaha ...

Unfortunately you have it all wrong, everybody in Indonesia pays tax, some pay the real tax and others pay the......"real" tax, the difference being that, with the second form of taxation you can actually quantify what you get in return for the "tax" you have paid.

Thats exactly how it is, of course you will still get those that pay both taxes, but very few will actually never pay any at all, we bitch and moan about the rich here not paying their fair share, but just how much money do they spend with the alternative 'Tax" system, its an economic factor that, if eliminated, would slide the middle clases into the realms of poverty.

Middle classes Have to support themselves in this way, lets take an example; policeman with a miserable wage of US$150.00 per month, how can he ever think of sending his children to higher education with that type of salary, impossible, so he will use the limited power that he has, by virtue of being a policeman, to extract a bribe from some one that, lets say, drives their motorbike without a license. The motorbike rider gets the opportunity of not having their bike confiscated and dealing with this matter without having to spend hours in a Police station and maybe even in court, not to mention the "fine" they would receive anyway, money that most probably would not go into the Government coffers anyway but would end up in some "pen pushing" sergeants pocket, both the bike rider and the policeman know this all too well. Solution...pay a bribe and feel better knowing that you have just maybe helped send a child to higher education.Many times the problem with this type of situation is the way that the "alternative" tax is extracted from you, is it by means of intimidation or through the very Indonesian way of "I can help you" ... and of course you will be helping them too with your "donation".Of course society should not be like this, all people should and have the right to live a decent life style where they can be proud of the job they do that they feel real honor in providing a service to their country folk and doing what is right, but these idealism's don't pay for the new Hand Phone, they don't pay for the shopping trip to the New Mall.

i agree with u, in fact in older posts i acknowledge that "this is indonesia" -- and even if you are a foreigner, it's slightly crazy to go against the system, much better to go along with the culture of corruption.

thing is indonesia is stuck with this culture (it's been corrupt for hundreds of years afterall) no one that lives in indonesia can escape from it, and it isn't in anyone's best interests to be honest. --the best response to a corrupt society is to be corrupt yourself.

everyone knows that less corruption would be better, the interesting thing is how does / would a society reach a state of lower corruption...